Celebrations
by TopazSunshine
Summary: Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling. –DexHolders


_AN  
__Super late Merry Christmas wish to all of you! XD lol I think I was high on sugar when I wrote this... _

_Oh and this story takes place before 'Christmas'! I think. Lol._

_Anyway, this story contains the six OCs from before, and revolves around stuff that people usually do around Christmas - baking cookies, making snowmen, etc. Oh, and this contains **Specialshipping, Oldrivalshipping, Mangaquestshipping, FranticShipping & CommonerShipping. **Enjoy!_

* * *

Diamond thinks he's gone insane.

Five minutes ago, he's sitting in Green's living room, happily eating cookies, listening to Pearl's jokes, and watching television. Five minutes later, he's crammed into a small chair that threatens to collapse at any moment, seated before a small pink table with a plastic tea set laid out neatly, and waiting for Green's daughter, Lime, to pour imaginary tea for him.

Lime had been setting up a tea party on her own earlier on, and since Vermillion had fled from the girly scene, she had begged Diamond to be one of her 'guests'. Being the sucker that he is, he agreed.

_I should have said no_, Diamond grumbles inwardly, pretending to drink imaginary tea out of the tiny teacup in his hand. Luckily, Lime has a plate of real cake on the table, and the aspect of proper food lightens up the awkward atmosphere.

"The heck is going on?"

Diamond and Lime look up to see Gold standing in the doorway, his hand covering his mouth in an attempt to stop laughing. Diamond scowls. There's definitely nothing wrong with a grown man crammed into a tiny chair, drinking imaginary tea out of a bright pink cup decorated with daisies, and struggling to use a tiny fork to eat his cake. Definitely.

"We're having a tea party," Lime says brightly, her green eyes sparkling happily. She holds up a plate of cake. "Do you want some?"

In a flash, Gold is sitting opposite Diamond and accepting the plate from Lime. Diamond thinks that the older man looks even more ridiculous than he does, and since Gold is much taller than Diamond, he has to draw his knees up to his chest to prevent himself from falling off.

"What's going on?"

Gold and Diamond freeze as yet another man steps into the room. Silver raises an eyebrow at the ridiculous sight of the grown men, and looks at Lime for an explanation.

"Tea party," Lime say again in the space of two minutes. "Do you want to join us?"

To their surprise, Silver doesn't hesitate, and joins them.

"The heck?" Gold mutters, spewing crumbs of cake all over his plate.

However, when Diamond steals a look at Lime, he realised that she was looking at the redhead with puppy eyes, mirroring the exact same look that Blue uses when she wants something.

They commence with eating cake and pretending to drink the imaginary tea that Lime pours out for them. After the cakes are finished, Lime suggests that they play a game. She holds out four slips of paper, and ask each of them to take one.

Diamond frowns when he opens his slip of paper. He looks up to see Gold and Silver with deep frowns on their faces.

"What did you get Uncle Dia?" Lime asks softly, tilting her head up at him.

"Santa Hat," Diamond replies, still frowning.

"I got Lime's ribbon," Gold says.

"I got Lime's ribbon too," Silver adds, still frowning at his paper.

"I got Uncle Dia's scarf," Lime says, beaming happily. "So we have to wear whatever is on the paper!"

"What?" squeaks Gold and Silver at the same time.

Diamond hands his scarf to the young girl, helping her to wrap it around her neck. She looks adorable, with the white scarf threatening to cover her face completely if she didn't tilt her head up. After she is satisfied with the scarf, she suggests that Diamond should go next.

Lime produces a tiny, child-size Santa hat and walks over to Diamond. Even when sitting down, he's taller than her, so she has to stand on tip-toe.

Unfortunately, the hat is too small. Lime tugs and pulls angrily, trying to force the small hat onto Diamond's head. He glares at Silver and Gold, who are trying hard to muffle their laughter by leaning on their elbow and using their hand to cover their mouths.

In the end, Diamond simply holds the hat up to look like he's wearing it, and tells Lime to move on to Gold.

The look on Gold's face is priceless. In a split second, he's expression changes and he looks mortified.

But nonetheless, he bends down so Lime can tie the pink ribbon around his fringe. When she's done, he leans back and props his hand on his elbow and rests his cheek into his palm.

"You look pretty," Lime tells him seriously. Due to her straight face, no one can actually tell if she really means it.

"Err, thanks?" Gold grimaces, and rubs his finger against his nose.

"You look really pretty Gold," Silver says comfortingly, patting the amber-eyed man on the back.

Gold turns to the redhead and glares at him. "Do you want to look pretty too?"

Silver begins to look uncomfortable as Lime pulls out a blue ribbon. The redhead bends his head down so Lime can reach him more easily.

"Hey! Why does he get the blue one?" Gold demands.

"He looks prettier in blue," Lime says, and proceeds to gather some of Silver's hair before tying the blue ribbon around it. Diamond thinks that compared to the two other men, he looks much better with the too-tiny Santa hat. He swears to be eternally grateful to the hat.

When Lime steps back to admire her handiwork, Silver scowl softens as he looks down at her. For a fleeting moment, Diamond swears he sees a look of fondness cross over the stoic man's face. Perhaps he sees Blue in the little girl standing before him, or maybe Lime is just giving him the puppy-eyes look again. Or maybe Diamond is just hallucinating.

"Do I look pretty?" Silver asks Lime gently.

Yep. He is definitely hallucinating. He blames the cake.

"Prettier," Lime says firmly, tugging at the ends of the bow.

"Wait a minute!" Gold gasps. "How the heck is he prettier?"

"He was smiling," Lime replies.

Gold's reply is to give his biggest smile, showing all his teeth.

"How's this?" he asks, through clenched teeth.

"You look like a retard," Lime deadpans.

Silver loses it. He falls off his chair and can't stop laughing even when his head slams against the floor.

Lime seems to feel sorry for Gold. She walks up to him and gives the man a hug, before saying softly, "Uncle Gold is as pretty as Uncle Silver."

Gold smiles and hugs the little girl back.

* * *

While the three men and Lime were playing tea parties, Red, Yellow and Gem were busy making a snowman outside.

"There," Yellow says happily as they stick twigs at the sides of the snowman for hands. She bends down to reach the younger girl's height. "What else do we need?"

The gold-eyed girl studies the snowman for a moment, before turning to the blonde. "He needs a face."

Yellow nods and straightens up. "I'll go get some pebbles," she says to the both of them.

As the blonde leaves, Gem turns to Red, tilting her head up so she can look up at him.

"Are you married to Aunty Yellow?"

"What?" Red squeaks, before trying to compose himself. "Umm, no."

"But you two love each other," the girl presses on. Red looks left and right, hoping for a distraction to save him from this conversation.

"So why don't you want to marry her?"

Red sighs, and scratches the back of his head. "I don't know, I'm scared, I guess."

"That she'll say no?"

"Eh, let's go with that," Red says. He definitely can't tell her that he's afraid that Yellow's father would tear him apart if he even thought about proposing. That would just be a huge blow to his ego.

"Dad says that Aunty Yellow had a crush on you for a really long time," Gem says. "He said you were too stupid to notice."

Red flinches. Its one thing to hear that from one of your closest friends, but its another thing to hear it from said closest friend's daughter.

"And then Dad said that when you did find out that she liked you, you chickened out and failed at least eight times while trying to ask her out," Gem continues.

"It's nine actually," Red grimaces.

"And Dad called you gay," Gem concluded. She looked up at him and Red risked looking into her eyes. She looked confused.

"What's gay?"

"Eh," Red face-palms. This is not a conversation he wants to have with a little girl. "Ask your mom."

"Alright..." Gem says. "But you should ask her to marry you, you know. Auntie Yellow's been waiting around for, pretty much forever."

"I'm just worried that I can't give her the happy ending she deserves," Red groans, and then stiffens when he's just realised what he just said.

"Happy endings?" Gem scoffs. "Mom says true love never have happy endings."

Before Red can respond, the younger girl looks up at him and smiles.

"Because true love never ends."

When Yellow finally returns with the pebbles, Red waits for her to pour them into Gem's cupped hands before sweeping the blonde up into his arms, ignoring his girlfriend's squeaks of surprise.

Red thinks about the ring hidden in his bedside drawer, and the challenge that is yet to come (asking for Yellow's hand would be easy, asking for her father's permission would probably cause him to end up with a few broken bones).

Red looks into Yellow's eyes, and presses his lips against hers, realising that everything would be alright.

* * *

Christmas isn't complete without the usual festive treats, Crystal muses to herself, as she arranges latest batch of cookies on the baking tray. There are only four of them in the kitchen — Blue, Platinum, Turquoise, and herself.

"Where's Dia?" Blue asks, looking at her. "He could really help us out here."

"He was playing with Lime," Turquoise tells her, before Platinum can come up with a reply.

"Tea parties again?" Blue asks, and groans when her son nods. "She's been forcing all of us to play that with her ever since Green got her that tea set," she explains when she catches sight of her companions' confused expressions.

Platinum shoots her a sympathetic look and looks as if she is about to say something when the door swings open and Green, Emerald and Pearl walk in, loaded with carrier bags.

"Here's the stuff you guys need," Emerald grunts, dumping the bags onto the floor, before collapsing in a chair. His companions follow at a less urgent pace, slowly placing the remaining bags on the floor.

"Where's Ammolite?" Crystal asks, and at her question, Pearl and Emerald let out groans and stomp out of the room. Confused, Platinum looks at Green for an explanation.

"Because the walk to the store was pretty long, Pearl suggested playing a game to keep us entertained," Green begins, and rests his hand on the table. The women gesture for him to continue, and Turquoise looks vaguely curious.

"So he said that the man who had the most women approaching him would be the winner."

"So who won?" Crystal asks, stopping her work completely to look at Green.

"Your son," Green replies.

Crystal doesn't know whether to feel terribly proud or immensely disappointed.

* * *

"Why are we doing this?"

Pearl ignores the smaller boy and gestures for Emerald to hand him more mistletoe.

"It's for Red and Yellow," Emerald tells Ammolite, giving the younger boy a peace sign. "They'll be thanking us on their marriage day."

"It's for Dia and Platinum too," Pearl says happily, clambering down from the ladder. "It's high time both couples get married already."

"And this plan is foolproof!" Emerald declares, giving Pearl a fist bump when the younger blonde stands next to him. Pearl flashes a thumbs-up at Ammolite, who still looks confused.

"Shouldn't we just give them time?" Ammolite asks, staring at the clump of mistletoe. "And I don't think your plan is gonna work."

"What's not going to work?" asks Silver, stepping into the room. For a moment, the two men and Ammolite are stunned into silence. Silver has a bright blue ribbon tied up around a clump red hair at the top of his head. And he is not showing any sign of unhappiness or regret. And he's smiling.

Silver hardly smiles. He only does when Gold is in pain or something.

Emerald mentally slaps himself. He reckons he's dreaming.

"We're going to play dress-up," a small girl announces, and Emerald notices that Lime is standing next to Silver, gently clinging on to his jacket sleeve. It's hard to make out what's she saying because she has a huge white scarf wrapped around her neck that muffles most of her words.

Silver chuckles and bends down so he can give Lime a piggyback, and doesn't seem to show any sign of irritation when the girl wraps her arms around his neck.

This time, Emerald makes sure that he slaps himself both physically and mentally, because he's pretty damn sure this is a dream.

* * *

The dex holders have finally gathered in the living room after the day's activities. Blue notes that everyone seems a little different than how they were previously.

Gold seems to be delighted at his son's success with attracting women. He hugs the boy and Blue can hear praises like "that's my boy", and "you're a chip off the old block".

Red seems a lot less frazzled than when she saw him talking to Gem outside, and he seems a lot more calm and happier whenever he smiles at Yellow.

Pearl and Emerald seemed to have recovered from their trauma of losing to a kid, but that still doesn't stop them from shooting glares at Ammolite every few moments.

Even Silver seems to be enjoying himself. He's listening attentively to Lime's babble about rainbows and cupcakes, and doesn't seem to appear bored. Blue does a quick check and realises that Lime's giving him the puppy-eyes look again. Ah.

Suddenly the peaceful atmosphere is broken when Pearl suddenly leaps onto his feet and flings his cup of cocoa into the face of Emerald as he points up at the spot above where Diamond and Platinum are standing at.

"MISTLETOE!" He screeches happily, and does some kind of crazy break dance.

Unfortunately, when the cup of cocoa was being flung into Emerald's face, Diamond and Platinum had moved away from the mistletoe spot and were approaching their friend to see if he was alright, only to witness him break out into what appears to be a victory dance.

And to top it off, Ruby and Sapphire were currently standing directly under the mistletoe, because they were in the midst of heading to the kitchen to get some more cookies for their twin daughters.

There is a pause, before everyone starts cheering and clapping for the couple, who look like they wished that they could use Teleport or Selfdestruct.

Ruby closes his eyes and stretches out his arms, hoping to salvage what's left of his dignity and to make the situation seem a lot less unbearable for them. Sapphire hands are balled up into fists and looks like she wants to punch the living daylights out of him.

However before she could do that, there is a pattering of feet and a flash of blue, as Cerulean leaps into her father's embrace, and presses her lips against her father's cheek. Ruby blinks, surprised at the unexpected turn of events, but snaps back into reality and hugs his daughter back.

Vermillion on the other hand runs towards her mother, and hugs her mother tightly by the knees.

Surprised, everyone claps and cheers again, with the exception of Green and Turquoise, who just watch the scene with stoic expressions.

* * *

"Ah, happy times," Blue murmured, resting her head on her husband's shoulder and hugging his arm happily. "I remember when I was the one running around hanging mistletoe."

"At least you were more successful," Green muttered. "And you covered up your tracks so no one could get back at you."

"I just feel sorry for them," chimed in Turquoise, who had put down his book to watch Sapphire punching Pearl, and Ruby whacking Emerald, while their daughters cheered for their parents.

"Heck it," Lime giggled, clinking her glass of juice with Silver's cup of cocoa.

"Cheers!"

* * *

_AN:_

_Lol what is this._

_Scene 1 (Tea Parties): This scene was inspired by chickypeg's story, Growing Pains!  
Scene 2 (Snowman): I saw the quote that Gem said somewhere on the Internet, and I liked it so much I decided to include in here. And specialshipping! Squee~  
Scene 3 (Cookies): Didn't give Turquoise much spotlight here.. It was hard even including him :P And the Ammolite scene is also inspired by chickypeg's Growing Pains!  
Scene 4 (Mistletoe 1): I know most stories involve Blue running around hanging mistletoe, but as usual, I wanted to be different and used Emerald and Pearl instead~ And yeah, I guess Ammo didn't get much spotlight here either...  
Scene 5 (Mistletoe 2): Pearl's break dance was inspired by that battle stance thing he does in Platinum when he challenges you for a battle. Yeah._

I think Scene 1 and 2 went on too long, but I liked those scenes a lot, in my opinion, cos Lime and Gem are my favourite OCs~ Heh.

Here's a belated Christmas present for you guys! Cafe Gracideas Chapter 2 is still construction. Actually, I haven't started writing it yet. Gah.


End file.
